The invention relates to the processing of images, in particular medical images.
The processing of images makes it possible in particular to intercompare images. According to certain current techniques, the images are compared pairwise. Other techniques make it possible to compare the images of a series. Depending on the context, various categories of problems arise for rendering the images comparable, as will be seen.
These comparisons have very diverse applications, for example in the medical field for aiding diagnosis of pathologies. In the case of the comparison of the images of a time series that are captured over a given period, it is possible to detect pathologically developing zones.
In a particular application of image processing, for example in the case of multiple sclerosis lesions, medical images may be analyzed temporally and automatically so as to establish a detection of pathologically developing zones. Automatic temporal analysis techniques are used especially to provide aid for patient diagnosis. The performance of the currently used temporal and automatic analysis techniques is limited, in particular in the case of the detection of pathologically developing zones. In the medical field, these techniques are ill-suited for example for quantifying a posteriori the effect of medications administered in the case of therapeutic trials. More generally, fine evolutionary developments in pathologically developing zones have to be detected from one image to another. It has to be possible to do so with regard to snapshots spaced over time, and also with regard to a phenomenon in progress, that is to say one whose beginning was not observed.